Hutt City Council has today released its proposed change to the District Plan that will allow for higher and denser housing across Lower Hutt, as required under new government rules.
The proposed plan change is open for public submissions until 20 September. This feedback will be considered by an independent panel at a public hearing in the first half of next year.
Full details, zone maps and how to make a submission are at hutt.city/PC56 from 18 August.
The new government rules aim to increase housing supply and affordability across Lower Hutt and other main centres by loosening current rules on development.
Council may only limit the government’s new rules in specific circumstances and has identified those areas as being at risk from natural hazards, heritage areas, or sites of significance to Māori.
Hutt City Council Interim Director Environment & Sustainability Alison Geddes said that although the key changes to the housing rules are mandated by the legislation, the public is invited to have a say on some of the rules.
“While we all accept that housing supply and quality are major challenges for our city and that we need to provide more housing for our growing population, we recognise that the government’s directive to give effect to intensification is a blunt tool, and submitted on this at the time,” she said.
Hutt City Council opposed the legislation and instead requested that the rules be applied only to councils that had not substantively progressed intensification plans in their cities to meet projected housing needs.
“We’ve worked to include earlier feedback from the public and Mana Whenua into the proposed changes and I encourage residents to get involved and have their say by 20 September,” Alison Geddes said.
A letter outlining the proposed changes and how to have your say will be arriving in urban residential and business letterboxes over the coming week.
Notes: The Government passed a law in late 2021 requiring large urban councils to change their planning rules to allow housing up to three storeys high and three homes per section in most residential areas, without requiring council planning permission (resource consent). In addition, the
National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD)
issued by the Government means Council is also required to allow housing of at least six storeys within walking distance of our train stations, the CBD and the Petone commercial area. More housing must be allowed around smaller commercial centres. In Lower Hutt, this includes the commercial centres of Avalon, Moera, Stokes Valley, Wainuiomata and Eastbourne. Key points of the proposed plan change previously publicised include: 1) A new High Density Residential zone proposes:
- Buildings up to six storeys, subject to planning permission, within 1200m from the edge of the Lower Hutt CBD.
- Buildings up to six storeys, subject to planning permission, 800m from the Petone commercial centre and all train stations
- Buildings up to six storeys, subject to planning permission, in areas around Avalon and Moera commercial centres
- Buildings up to four storeys, subject to planning permission, in areas around the commercial shopping centres in Stokes Valley, Wainuiomata and Eastbourne.
2) New building heights and density are reduced in some areas of the city on sites with specific constraints to building. This means more development is still possible but consent from the Council will be required. Development will be constrained on sites:
- At risk from natural hazards like flooding, tsunami, and coastal hazards (including climate change and sea level rise) and within 20m of the Wellington fault line
- With heritage protection – the existing heritage protection in the District Plan will still apply. Six additional residential heritage areas have been identified and the changes propose to limit the scale of future development in these areas
- Of significance to Māori, including those close to marae and urupā, affected by the changes.
3) The government-mandated changes mean that the current low-density-zoned areas of Boulcott, Woburn and Lowry Bay will be included in the new intensification rules. 4) No maximum building height limit in the Lower Hutt CBD and the western part of the Petone commercial area, but most new buildings will continue to be assessed on a case-by case basis through the resource consent process. 5) Developers will be required to pay financial contributions for infrastructure and reserves, based on the number of dwellings created, not per subdivision. 6) Introduce minimum landscaping, outlook and façade glazing rules – these were optional government requirements but supported in our public feedback.
